NORTH CAROLINA COMPUTERS STOLEN FROM CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY OUTREACH CENTER Local News News for Charlotte, North Carolina WCNC.com Top Stories

A local Christian community outreach center is offering a $1,000 reward after someone stole thousands of dollars worth ofcomputer equipment and key client contact information during two Christmas week break-ins.

The Bethlehem Center has been broken into before. It's also had vans vandalized. This time, all signs point to an inside job by one of its clients.

There isn't a lot of extra anything floating around the Bethlehem Center.

It hands out donated Christmas toys; money for food, bills and medicine; and hope for the poor.

"The children in this area do not have computers at home,” said executive director William McDonald.

They come here to do homework. Now, two of those computers are gone. So too are six computers, monitors and keyboards stolen from Bethlehem Center offices.

They kept track of who needed help, who got help, plus accounting and payroll.

"We're basically going to have to start over, so there's going to be a lot of frustrated and hurt families coming to us,” McDonald said.

He says the culprit is a client.

Twice, the thief climbed through basement windows. They were locked from the inside and were not broken.

"They had to be in here during the day and unlock those windows."

Glass was knocked out of office doors. Steps gave a boost.

"They must have stepped up and reached through,” McDonald said.

Whoever it was knew exactly where to go.

"It's just very disappointing that someone would be so selfish."

Police found a hat, fingerprints and shoe prints, plus a hole cut in a chain-link fence.

Employees lost a sense of security.

"We've been breached and they're just not safe,” he said.

If an investigation or $1,000 reward nabs a suspect, the Bethlehem Center has a predicament:

Will it continue to feed a hand that bit it?

"That's our calling is to serve. So, that's a thing we'd have to decide at that point,” McDonald said.

Bethlehem Center has already made security improvements. And the information on those stolen computers did not include sensitive information, such as people's Social Security numbers.